By Mel Cooke, Freelance WriterWESTERN BUREAU:
GUITARISTS PLUCKED at heartstrings and sang of actualities and possibilities, while drummers moved feet and minds at 6 Easton Avenue, St. Andrew, on Saturday night.
On a presentation oiled to perfection with camaraderie, a pressing cause and good humour, where artistic expression was the star, the songs of Andrew Stone and Wayne McGregor were the strips of carrot in a vegetable mix dominated by the deliciously crunchy poetry of Gaile Walters, Anna Brown, Nicole Burgher and Owen 'Blacka' Ellis.
MICROPHONE CALL
With the Akwabe Drummers opening 'Alter Native: An Evening of Poetry, Music, Drumming and Possibilities' and guitarist Dwight Pinkney closing it with the company of Celine Dion, as well as comedian Ity taking up the open microphone call, there was never a dull or not touching moment.
Coming after poets Gaile Walters and Anna Brown, Andrew Stone was the first singer of the night. With one voice and two guitars, the other provided by Stevie Golding, he opened with a song for his grandfather, offering to all who would honour their ancestors. His eyes closed and voice strong, Stone leaned slightly towards the microphone and sang:
Picture of a past
Promise of the future
Your life is my inspiration
You're as wide as the mountains
And you're as deep as the oceans
And you've built our lives
With your tears and open laughter
He hit a higher plane on the refrain, part of which went:
Live long
Stay strong
You're a humble man
And the foundation of my pride.
With one last strum, he rocked back in his chair and released the audience with a 'yeah'.
"Part of the vibration in Jamaica is a lot of violence. Inter-personal violence, musical violence. It is mostly men and it is the same thing worldwide," Stone prefaced Fathers and Sons, asking the males to Open your minds/See the dawning of a new light/The world waiting to be/Built on truth and love/Not power and might.
DILEMMA OF MEN
Referring to the poetry done earlier, Stone outlined the dilemma of men in Jamaica not feeling free to grieve openly. "We as man need permission to bled, yu can cry an yu bredren no call yu bway and other unmentionable things," he said, to knowing chuckles, before singing a song of hidden emotions, in which I hide my tears in hollow laughter/I go out dancing when I would rather be alone/I lied when I said I was not home last night/I was too depressed to pick up the phone.
He closed with a song of deja vu, singing I've got this strange sensation/seems I've met you before, concluding that You and I are two rivers flowing in time.
After the break, the drummers, Nicole Burgher and Owen Ellis, it was Wayne McGregor's turn. Thank you for the thunderous applause, he quipped, taking a seat and starting with a song about the end of a relationship.
SOLACE
With guitar and voice in sync, McGregor sang of loss with Woman you did not even cry/When I told you I had to say goodbye, concluding that I broke my heart again.
As for the next song, McGregor said "I did for a very special person in my life. It is all about being lost and needing some solace". He went high as he sang Trust in me/I will set you free/When you are in pain/I will set you right again.
"My heart is basically in the blues," McGregor said, before taking it down south with a song about a woman who makes him so hot she is hard to handle:
Dengue woman
Stay away from me
Fever girl
Stay away from me
My fever's rising
My fever's hot
I just can't see
He ended with a song that was "very appropriate. All of us think we are tough and indestructible, but the human being is very fragile." The audience nodded along as McGregor sang On and on/The rain will fall/How fragile we are.
Dwight Pinkney, working with tracks and a smile of pure artistic pleasure, brought the evening's entertainment to a close with How Could I Live, Dance With My Father, going down briefly on one knee in the Luther Vandross song; Should I and joined Celine Dion's voice on tracks to end 'Alter Native: An Evening of Poetry, Music, Drumming and Possibilities'.
